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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



rying out the principles which Rumford ex- 

 pounded, lie foretold the danger of firing 

 Buch artillery as we now use with ordinary 

 small grain powder. Such powder would 

 explode completely before the shot could 

 fairly be set in motion, and would produce 

 bad effects on the gun. The modern cubes 

 burn on their surface and thereby start the 

 ball. They continue burning and evolving 

 more and more gas as the ball travels along 

 the tube, and, to be perfect, should just 

 complete their combustion as it leaves the 

 mouth of the gun. But this degree of per- 

 fection is not attained, and hence we have 

 the " porcupine-quills " appearance. 



Horse-Sausages. The best Bologna sau- 

 sages are made of chopped bacon and pea- 

 flour, and are flavored chiefly with garlic 

 and cloves. When the bacon is old, but 

 sound, says the Sanitarian, such sausages are 

 wholesome and highly nutritious, and are 

 especially useful to laborers, travelers, and 

 soldiers in camp, and others who have not 

 the means of cooking at hand. They rarely 

 spoil, but, being eaten uncooked, they may 

 sometimes introduce trichinae. The use of 

 horse-flesh is a recent innovation in sausage 

 manufacture, and is practiced in Italy and 

 Belgium, as well as in this country. These 

 horse-sausages are said to be of the Bo- 

 logna variety, and the makers justify them 

 from the wholesomeness of horse-flesh when 

 healthy. But the meat actually used is that 

 of animals worn out by work or made use- 

 less by disease " fit for nothing else." 



The Medoc Wines. The Medoc district 

 of France, famous for its wines, consists of a 

 long strip of land, extending northerly from 

 Bordeaux and lying between the sea and the 

 river Gironde. The best vines are grown 

 on a surface of gravel-quartz and sand with 

 a clay subsoil. The vine most usually grown 

 is of a stunted variety, and seldom rises 

 more than two feet from the ground. They 

 first bear about five years after being planted, 

 and continue productive for one hundred or 

 even two hundred years. The grapes, when 

 taken to the press-house, are stripped from 

 the stalks and placed in large vats, some of 

 which have a capacity of 3,240 gallons 

 apiece. In these they are left to ferment for 

 a period of from a week to a fortnight. 



after which the wine is drawn off into hogs- 

 heads and taken to cool in well-ventilated 

 stores. Here the casks are filled up at in- 

 tervals, and the drawings-off are attended to 

 at the proper time. Tendency to excessive 

 fermentation is checked by drawing the 

 wine off into casks impregnated with sul- 

 phur. The Medoc wines are classified into 

 several grades or growths, the qualities of 

 which are considerably capricious ; and the 

 quantity of wine produced at the several 

 vineyards is subject to great fluctuations. 

 Notwithstanding, however, the uncertainty 

 of the annual return, the Medoc district 

 is said to be of greater commercial value 

 to France than both the better known Cog- 

 nac and Champagne districts put together. 



NOTES. 



In respect to the use of the diamond 

 drill, or an instrument of corresponding 

 effectiveness, by the ancient Egyptians, Mr. 

 W. F. Durfee, having inquired through our 

 consul-general at Cairo, received from Mr. 

 W. Flinders Petrie the following list of 

 objects in which marks of such an instru- 

 ment may be seen : Base of tube-drill hole, 

 cut too deep in roughing out the statue, 

 between the feet of the diorite statue of 

 Chafra (Kofra), in the Boulak Museum ; 

 sides of two drill-holes, showing on the 

 inside of the sarcophagus at Gizeh ; the 

 marks are near the top, at the north end of 

 the east side, and on the west end ; saw- 

 cut too deep into the outside of that sar- 

 cophagus, on the north end, near the top at 

 the northeast edge ; saw-cut surface beneath 

 the sarcophagus in the second pyramid at 

 Gizeh ; drill-hole with core sticking in it, in 

 the granite lintel of the chamber leading 

 from the southwest corner of the great hall 

 of the granite temple of Gizeh, the fifth hole. 

 Mr. Petrie believes there are some small 

 drill-holes in the Hyksos head in black gran- 

 ite from Bubastis, in the Boulak Museum, 

 where the eye-sockets have been cut out. 



The importance of taking care of the 

 first teeth is insisted on by Mr. Fisher, a 

 dentist of Dundee. While they are destined 

 to disappear in a short time and give place 

 to other teeth, they will cause pain and gen- 

 eral conditions of disease if they are un- 

 sound, the same as the permanent teeth do ; 

 and the latter can not escape being affected 

 by the disorders they occasion. It is not 

 safe to depend on extracting them if they 

 cause pain, for that enfeebles the chewing 

 power ; and, if many of them are removed, 

 the jaw does not develop properly, and the 

 second teeth are made liable to grow irregu- 

 larly. 



